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A Christmas Carol Playlist blogshop

Many of the albums featuring songs I have listed in the A Christmas Carol Playlist series can be purchased through amazon.com

I have set up a section in my blogshop where the CDs can be purchased. Take a look at my Christmas Blogshop. I earn a commission on any sales made via my website, and seeing as I intend to ensure my websites pay their own way in 2007, I would appreciate your support :-)

A Christmas Carol Playlist 7: Wassail matter with you?

I finish this series with that most English (and most secular) of Christmas traditions, the wassail. It's such an integral part of Christmas that Dictionary.com made wassail its word of the day for December 24.

Here's a recipe for wassail I googled earlier.

So as Christmastide rolls on towards New Year, here is my Wassailing playlist - mostly traditional wassailing songs, and finished off with a delightful Christmas single from 1992 which sounds like it was the outcome of too much wassailing.

Christmas carol odds and sods

On the fourth day of Christmas, I think it's time to wrap this series up, and not in either Christmas wrapping paper or swaddling clothes either.

But before I do ACCP7, there's a few odds and sods that I haven't pulled together into one theme, and unless I get some inspiration between now and Epiphany, I'll leave them for another year to germinate. I hadn't even contemplated the Christmas Oratorios of JS Bach until Al Sharpton made the following pronouncement:

"What James Brown was to music in terms of soul and hip-hop, rap, all of that, is what Bach was to classical music."

A Christmas Carol Playlist 6: The Final Cut (Subversive Mix)

It starts curiously enough, and takes a sharp turn into the bizarre about half-way through. (And no, this is not the final playlist in this series...)

  1. "I'll Be Home For Christmas" Johnny Cash
  2. "O Come O Come Emmanuel" Sufjan Stevens
  3. "Joy To The World" The Jambalaya Cajun Band
  4. "Santa Claus Got Stuck In My Chimney" Ella Fitzgerald
  5. "O Come All Ye Faithful" Twisted Sister
  6. "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" Dr Elmo
  7. "You're A Mean One Mr Grinch" Aimee Mann
  8. "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" The Klezmonauts
  9. "Deck The Halls" William Hung
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A Christmas Carol Playlist 5: The Final Cut (Easy Listening Mix)

A shorter playlist than the one that comes next, but a neat mix of traditional choral performances with some ever-so-unexpected American jazz/blues/folk artists. Five religious numbers and five secular ones:

  1. "O Come O Come Emmanuel" Tonus Peregrinus
  2. "What Child Is This" Mahalia Jackson
  3. "Joy To The World" Joe Williams
  4. "For Unto Us A Child Is Born" (GF Handel) The Cambridge Singers/John Rutter
  5. "Good King Wenceslas" The Sixteen And Harry Christopher
  6. "The Holly And The Ivy" Anonymous 4
  7. "White Christmas" Louis Armstrong
  8. "I'll Be Home For Christmas" Aimee Mann
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A Christmas stream of semi-consciousness

Adara and I returned last night from three days in Newcastle visiting her grandmother and having the time of her life playing with some of her second cousins. She is now the proud owner of surely the bulk of the Dora the Explorer merchandise catalogue. If you or your superannuation fund holds a stake in Viacom, think of us next time you receive a share dividend.

This morning was a celebration of the real reason for Christmas, namely the commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Lessons and carols at All Saints this morning. Wonderful stuff.

Adara and Di head to Adelaide tonight for Christmas week with their relatives. My family engagements are complete, and I am exhausted. Time for bloggage-as-therapy before the Obligatory Christmas Afternoon Nap. Currently listening to John Fahey's rendition of some Christmas music being played on WNYC-FM from New York.

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